Deadline: 20-Jan-23
Applications are now open for the Regional Drought Resilience Planning Program that aims to build capability and empower regional communities to plan and act early to reduce and respond to drought risks.
The Regional Drought Resilience Planning Program is co-funded by the Commonwealth Government’s Future Drought Fund and the NSW Government’s Regional Growth Fund. It provides support to identified regions in NSW to develop drought resilience plans that can be implemented by councils and their communities to manage future risks.
Objectives
- The program is designed to support the development of drought plans to consider:
- Growing the self-reliance and drought resilience of regional communities including the agricultural sector
- Improving natural capital of agricultural landscapes for better environmental outcomes
- Strengthening the wellbeing and social capital of rural, regional and remote communities.
- The program will enable small council led consortiums of between 2 and 6 local governments to better prepare for, respond to and recover from drought. The council consortiums are designed to relate by Functional Economic Regions (FERs). This is to ensure that the project considers local drought factors and solutions that align with FERs which could support implementation across related regions.
- The program will foster partnerships with local farmers, communities and industries to define plans to become more self-reliant and resilient against the effects of drought and other challenges.
- The program will support the consortium to design and deliver a Regional Drought Resilience Plan to achieve the objectives
Funding Information
- The program will allocate funding of up to $580,000 to successful applications per consortium of councils.
- Regional Drought Resilience Plan Development
- $200,000 for the development of a drought plan that covers the drought resilience needs of the consortia’s regions.
- Where consortia comprise of more than 3 councils, $10,000 will be provided per additional council to support wider community consultation on the plan.
- Where the cost of the drought plan is less than $200,000 to complete, these funds can be added to implementation.
- Regional Drought Resilience Plan Implementation (action, business case or project plan for actions)
- $250,000 will be available to the consortia for implementation, once the plan is completed and demonstrates that it meets the requirements of the agreed Funding Deed.
- Where consortia comprise of more than 3 councils, an additional $100,000 will be provided to the consortia for implementation, subject to approval of activities by DRNSW.
Local Benefits
Applications should address how their regional communities will benefit from:
- Being able to identify and plan for the impacts of drought
- Being in a stronger position to adapt to changes and take advantage of opportunities as they arise
- Building their economic, environmental and social resilience to future droughts
- Learning from each other and sharing what’s working and not working
- Forming even stronger partnerships within and between regions
- Having access to best-practice data to make better decisions
- Improving natural resource management across the regions.
Eligible Planning Types
- The funds must be used for Regional Drought Resilience planning and implementation of the plan to:
- Grow the self-reliance and drought resilience of regional communities including the agricultural sector
- Improve natural capital of agricultural landscapes for better environmental outcomes
- Strengthen the wellbeing and social capital of rural, regional and remote communities.
- All applications need to demonstrate the project can start immediately once notified and completed by 30 October 2023.
Eligibility Criteria
- These LGAs are eligible because they have been identified as being vulnerable to drought, with a strong reliance on agriculture.
- LGA council consortia must consist of 2 to 6 local governments in alignment with the consortium groupings.
- The council consortia should form and submit one application together for the project.
- Councils are eligible to apply for the full allocation for their consortium to develop a Drought Resilience Plan for their regions.
- The council consortia can make their application through a Joint Organisation to be the lead applicant, providing they are located in an eligible LGA in the consortium. A letter of support as evidence the eligible council consortia support this approach should be provided by the lead applicant.
- Councils can use/contract other entities to help with planning only once the application is reviewed and they are notified as successful by the Department of Regional NSW and a Funding Deed is executed with the Department.
- Other entities are defined as legal entities that undertake planning at a regional scale and include the Regional Development Australia Network, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people organisations, Natural Resources Management Regions Australia organisations, statutory authorities or other entities as deemed relevant by the Department of Regional NSW.
- Where possible councils should be the project lead with support of other entities.
For more information, visit NSW Government.
